Olivia (22 page)

He doesn’t answer me immediately. He takes the last
of the t-shirts from the bottom drawer and tucks it neatly on top
of the folded stack. “I’d wanted to be that. It’s going to be
difficult when they’re thousands of miles away, though.”

“
Difficult, but doable.”

“
I always thought they’d be okay if
they had me to look up to. But I can’t watch them now. I can’t
watch them grow up. I can’t be there when they have questions that
only a man can answer for them. There’s no father figure in Utah,
either.”

“
Call them often,” I encourage him.
“Every day. You can still be a presence in their life. I’m sure
your aunt would want that, anyway.”

“
It’s just not the same.” He closes
the box and finally turns around to face me.

“
No, it’s not. It’s change. And
what did you ultimately want for them? Change. Something different
than the life they know. This could be a start.”

“
I just didn’t expect it to happen
without me nearby. That’s all.” I stroke the side of his face, and
then run my fingers through his hair. “And I know they didn’t want
that, either. You should have seen Max.” He looks down into his lap
and takes my other hand in his, playing with my ring. “Aunt Patty
had to pry him from my leg at the airport. I can only hope he
settled down before they got on the plane this morning.”

“
They’ll be there in a few hours.
You can find out then. I’m sure they’ll call you
tonight.”

“
I know,” he says as he looks up at
me. “Thanks for being here with me today.”

“
I wouldn’t want to be anywhere
else.” His smile is weak before he leans in and kisses me. Even in
its brevity, I can feel his need for comfort.

He picks up a roll of packing tape next to my leg
and secures the box beside him. Until a tear falls onto the
cardboard, I don’t realize he’s crying. “Jon,” I whisper softly,
inching closer and putting my arm around his slumped shoulders.
“It’s okay.”

He shakes his head, and I hear him swallow. After a
few deep breaths, he explains his mood. “This is very reminiscent
of when my father died,” he admits. “I sat alone in his apartment,
packing up his things, too. Mom wouldn’t help–not that I blame
her.”

“
What about your uncle?”

“
He was too upset.” He laughs a
little. “What my dad lacked in emotion, Ray has in spades. They
were complete opposites.”

“
What was your dad like?” I ask
him. He’d never brought it up, and I’d never wanted to be the one
to broach that subject, but it seems like it’s okay to talk about
it now.

“
My dad...” He sighs. “My dad was
emotionally distant, I guess you could say. He was very
intelligent, obsessed with knowing everything about everything. If
you think I’m bad, you have no idea,” he says with a wistful smile.
“He loved science. He loved literature. He loved art. He loved
film. He loved nature. He loved logic. But he didn’t love any god,
nor did he know how to show love to another person.

“
Looking back, I’ve never seen so
much passion or attention wasted on things that could never benefit
from it, you know? Things and ideas, those were what made him
happy, and he became alive when you’d engage him in any
intellectual conversation that gave him the freedom to boast his
knowledge or tout his opinion. But God forbid you love him,” Jon
said, his voice trailing off. “That, he couldn’t
return.”

“
What do you mean?”

“
Did you ever wonder how my mother
got to be this way? This selfish, alcoholic woman who can’t care
for her own children? It was my dad’s fault. He could never love
her. He married this woman who was completely taken with him, but
he just couldn’t love her.”

“
Then why did they get
married?”

He turns to look at me, then points to himself. “I
showed up.”

“
Oh,” I say simply. “I didn’t
know.”

“
I never told you,” he says. “My
dad thought he’d been tricked. He’d asked for an abortion, but she
wouldn’t do it. He resented me for quite some time. When I was
three and a half, they split up.”

“
He walked out?” I ask
him.

“
Not without good reason. Mom went
out, looking for love... she found the affection of Will and Max’s
father, and had an affair. She didn’t love him, though. Not like
she loved my dad. She tried to hide the pregnancy first, and then
she tried to convince Dad that she was pregnant with his child, but
apparently there was ‘no way’ that could have happened. Five months
after they split, Will was born.”

“
How’d you find out about all of
this?”

“
Mom got drunk one night and let it
all out.”

“
How old were you?”

“
Twelve. It wasn’t too long after
Max was born.”

“
I’m so sorry.”

Jon shakes his head. “It’s weird, because I’d never
really thought about ‘love’ when it came to my dad. It wasn’t
something I’d ever really looked for. I knew some kids had
that–hell, I knew
you
had that, with the
way your dad doted over you–but I just assumed you were all lucky,
or special, or somehow extraordinary. I never knew it was something
I should expect. I mean, my dad never even told me he loved me. And
when Will and Max came along, their dad was the same. Emotionally
dead.

“
And Mom wasn’t much better. She
was too hurt by my dad–and then too drunk in the wake of what
happened. She’d tell me she loved me, but it was rarely when she
was in a coherent, sober state.”

“
I love you, Jon,” I tell him
spontaneously, moved to say so by his story and by my own genuine
compassion for him. “How could anyone not love you?” Sadness
overwhelms me as I look into his eyes, and I feel myself begin to
cry. “Don’t believe it for a second. Just because they didn’t say
it doesn’t mean they didn’t feel it.”

Another tear falls down his cheek, but he never
breaks down. He looks at me for a few seconds, his thumbs wiping
away the wetness from my face, and returns my involuntary verbal
outburst with an instinctive physical one of his own. His lips
crash hard against mine, moving quickly as his hands lace through
my hair and rest at the nape of my neck.

Both of us in need of a breath, he turns his head to
the side slightly, resting his temple against mine. My hands press
on his chest, feeling the fast rise and fall of his breathing that
mirrors my own. His left hand trails down my right arm until it
reaches my hip. His fingers grasp my hipbone as his right hand
gently caresses my cheek.

“
I need you,” he whispers in my
ear. I nod my head against his, and I know he can feel my response.
He continues to stroke the corner of my mouth with his thumb. I
kiss it sweetly, and he lets it linger over my lips. I kiss it a
few more times before I grasp his t-shirt in my hands and start to
take it off. He lets go of me to pull it over his head.

His eyes trained on mine, he stands up in front of
me, offering his hand to help me to my feet. Once standing, I kiss
his lips, then his jawline, then his neck, and he turns his
shoulder like clockwork, bending down ever so slightly so I can
kiss the
dream
and the
sleep
.

I slowly pull back, and he lifts my chin with his
finger so I can look into his pretty green eyes, and he can look
back into mine. His smile is small, but it’s there.

“
Love me,” I tell him.

“
I do,” he responds.

“
Show me.”

He swallows hard, moving his hands slowly to
unbutton my shirt. As he slides it off my shoulders, down my arms,
his fingers wrap around mine. “I will.”

“
Are you okay?”

“
I’m a little cold,” I tell him.
Even under the worn sheet and thin comforter, with his body still
radiating its own heat, I shiver in his arms. “Some clothes would
be nice.”

He slides out of bed, walking confidently across the
room. Just when I start to comment on how comfortable he is in his
skin, he pulls his boxers on and picks up his t-shirt and my
panties. He hands me my underwear, and I struggle to put them back
on under the blankets. He waits until I’m done to slide the shirt
over my head and arms.

“
Let me know if that’s not enough.”
He climbs back into the bed, reassuming his position and settling
me back into place against him. He kisses my forehead and plays
with my messy hair. “You, um...” he begins. “You didn’t seem as
tense this time.”

“
I know. It was different. I wasn’t
thinking about us having sex.” He shifts suddenly, staring at me
curiously. “I was just thinking about making you happy.”

“
So
that’s
what you’ve been doing wrong,” he teases me. “Because every time,
all I ever think about is making you happy.”

“
You think about making yourself
happy,” I challenge him playfully, poking him in the side, relieved
to see him smiling again.

“
Hey,” he says softly, suddenly
concerned. He turns his body to face mine, pulling my leg up over
his so we can be closer to one another. “You don’t really think
that, do you?”

“
No,” I laugh. “Never. Well, maybe
I think you’re trying to make us both happy, together.”

He’s pensive for a few seconds, nodding his head in
agreement. “Maybe that.” We share some lingering kisses, holding
hands beneath the sheets.

“
Jon?”

“
Yeah?”

“
With your parents, you know...
being like they were... how did you turn out like this?”

“
What, like such a good lover?” he
jokes with me.

“
Shut up,” I giggle lightly.
“That’s not what I mean, and you know it.”

He kisses my nose, smiling at me. “I blame you.”

“
Me?”

“
One thing that I always admired
about you, Olivia, was how you could convey your emotions, in
whatever language you chose to do it in. Sometimes in words,
sometimes tears, a few tantrums when we were younger... actions...
art. You’ve always been sensitive and completely unafraid of your
feelings. I’ve always been drawn to that in you. I always felt like
that was how I wanted to be.”

“
It’s how you are,” I tell him.
“You do the same.”

“
Now I do,” he shrugs. “My dad
thought I was ‘too soft.’ I can’t tell you how many times I heard
that growing up. It made me think it was wrong to have feelings at
all. Around him, I became stoic because I didn’t want to disappoint
him, and I wanted him to love me.

“
But in the end, that didn’t do any
good. When Dad died, I spent some time with Ray. Somehow, he
convinced me that my father did love me, in whatever handicapped
way he could. Ray had always wanted more from my dad, too, so we
bonded a little over that common unresolved wish.

“
I spent most of the immediate
months following my dad’s death alone, though. It was the summer. I
didn’t have school. The people I considered my friends were up to
no good.”

I remember that the summer after his father had died
was when he also had been with the two other girls. I feel a little
less special at the thought of them, wondering if the comfort they
provided him was just like what I’d done for him today. I focus on
his voice more intently, hoping to stop thinking of his past.

“
I read a lot... more non-fiction
than usual, self-help,” he says with a blush. “I’d hover in the
back of the library, reading for hours and hours, ashamed at the
feelings I was having and wanting to know how to deal with
them.”

“
Which feelings?”

“
Anger for my father. A desperate
need to be loved. Guilt for what I thought was love, but
wasn’t.”

“
How did you deal with
them?”

“
I realized that being angry at my
dad wasn’t going to bring him back to tell me what I’d been wanting
to hear. I accepted Ray’s assessment of Dad’s feelings... and I
forgave him.

“
Seeing my mother deteriorate over
the years really highlighted how to handle my need to be loved. I
knew I couldn’t be reliant on anyone other than myself to make me
happy.”

“
Until you met me,” I tell
him.

“
No. Even then. When we started
dating, I forgot about that. Truly. I was enraptured by you. Your
happiness was my own. It was symbiotic, and it seemed so romantic
and complete. But when we broke up last year, I had to step back
and look at what I’d become.”

“
And what you became was something
bad?” I ask, feeling a little offended but trying to mask it as
best as I can.

“
Not bad... but not me. I’d begun
to rely on you. In those first few days, I saw myself breaking;
broken, even. There was physical pain, which surprised me, and
scared me. I started to think you were a bad influence on me.” He
chuckles at the end of the sentence, but I maintain my serious
composure, waiting for the rest.

“
Go on,” I eventually encourage
him, growing impatient.

“
Of course it wasn’t your fault.
I’d let myself get to that point... but relying so heavily on you
didn’t make me happy. So I dropped my expectations entirely,” he
says. “I looked at myself, and started working to be the best
person that I–alone–could be. I was immediately happier, and then,
any time anything good happened, it was that much better, more
pure. Because I was already happy with myself. I had that
foundation already. Anything that you did, or that we did together,
just built upon that. And I think we’re that much better for
it.”